


Ghosts of the Past

by Mendeia



Series: Tales from Gundam Island [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gundam Wing
Genre: Adventures in the Spirit World, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Ominous Childhood Memories, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Heero relates a story from his childhood to the other Gundam Avatars, he learns there is a great deal more to one memory than he ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiyuri_dahlia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiyuri_dahlia/gifts).



> This is a oneshot that sort of grew and expanded into a three-shot. The original prompt came from saiyuri_dahlia for something to do with the boys' childhoods or something to do with Quatre interacting with the Spirit World. This three-shot is sort of the result of all that plus a few other little ideas I managed to tie together.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Tell me a story," Duo pleaded with wide, unfocused eyes.

Heero blinked at him.

"Pleeeeeeeeeease?"

Trowa shrugged. "There isn't a great deal else for us to do right now."

Heero glared at him.

"Besides, it might keep him quiet," Trowa added helpfully.

" _Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_ …"

"All right!" Heero snapped. "Just…stop that."

"You love me," Duo grinned dopily. "I can tell. You luuuuuuuurve me!"

Trowa made a sound suspiciously like a snort but turned it into a cough. Still, the bonds of the Avatar Soul that connected them betrayed his amusement to the other two.

"Do _you_ want to do this?" Heero asked him.

"No! I want Heero! Heero Heero my nearo Heero so clearo Heero little mousedeero!"

"Better tell him something," Trowa advised, eyes dancing with mirth, "or he'll keep going."

"You know I will!"

"If we get out of this alive, I might kill you both," Heero menaced without any real heat. Then he shifted to bend the sand around them, shoring up the walls of the little enclosure he had built to hold against the fierce sandstorm outside.

There had been reports that the famed Library of Wan Shi Tong had reappeared in the Si Wong Desert sometime after the Gundam Avatars had first united their powers in the Battle of Republic City. The Gundams had put off investigating for several months, partially because they were legitimately busy with a great deal of work to get the world on the right path, and partially because if the Library _had_ returned, they didn't want to risk every knowledge-hungry scholar or adventurer going looking for it. Wan Shi Tong's temper was legendary, and it was enough trouble keeping the younger, less powerful spirits appeased without irritating the great owl. But the rumors had persisted and in the months since the end of the war, seven or eight different travelers had ventured into the desert never to return. The Avatars could avoid it no longer.

The five had spent several days criss-crossing the vast desert on Triton, searching for any sign of either the lost seekers or the Library itself with absolutely no luck. Then a hawk had come from Rashid of the Maganacs requesting Quatre's presence in Omashu to settle some kind of disagreement. The Gundams had decided that they should split up to keep looking for the missing people in the desert as well as the Library while Quatre attended to his familial responsibilities. Wufei had gone with him on Triton, leaving the remaining three Gundams with a sand-sled to travel via sandbending and airbending. Even split by a fairly vast distance, all five would know if anything dire befell the others.

Of course, "anything dire" did not include Duo attempting to waterbend the toxins out of the desert cacti to refresh their supply of drinking water, failing at it, and promptly dosing himself with a massive amount of the hallucinatory liquid. The sudden sandstorm had provided a welcome break from trying to keep Duo on the sand-sled, when his present inclination was to wander off bonelessly muttering to himself.

"What kind of story do you want to hear?" Heero asked him, satisfied that his walls would hold up, reinforced by the sand-sled.

"Tell me about when you were an ickle bitty bunny Heero!" Duo cheered, his eyes far too wide.

"Roger that," Heero answered dryly, steadfastly ignoring Trowa's increasing amusement. He glanced around.

"I was taught sandbending by Sifu Odin when I was approximately nine years old," he said. "The technique is-"

"Nooooo," whined Duo. "Don't make it booooooring! Come on, Hee-Hee!"

Heero growled and Trowa barked a laugh. "He has a point," the airbender said idly. "You could at least attempt an entertaining story if we have to listen to his inanity for a while yet."

"Define entertaining."

"Able to elicit an emotional reaction or stimulate an intellectual interest or engagement in the audience," Trowa replied promptly. After all, he was still performer himself.

"Since you clearly know what is needed, you tell it," Heero said.

"No! Nononononononono…"

Trowa shrugged at where Duo was flinging his head back and forth with each iteration of the word "no" with increasing desperation. "Apparently I won't do."

Suddenly Duo stopped. He fixed his eyes on Heero. "Tell me a scaaaaaaary story, Heero!"

From the annoyed folds of his expression, a slight dark light began to burn. "Very well."

"This isn't going to be something stupid like a made-up haunted sword, is it?" Trowa asked, becoming interested.

"No," Heero shook his head. "This happened to _me_." He tipped his face down and began the tale, his monotonous voice flowing with the words even though he never looked up and never moved.

"When I was young, Sifu Odin took me on many journeys around the world. I didn't know it then, but I now realize he was investigating the Order of the Black Lotus and later the Five themselves. One day he seemed very nervous. We weren't far from the area where Lady Une discoverd the underground hideout of the Order along with many of its records before the Battle of Republic City. On such journeys, Sifu Odin would leave me by myself because some of his missions were very dangerous. It was not uncommon for me to be left alone waiting for him for as much as a week.

"I had been staying in a small hut we built together in the middle of the woods for two days when it happened.

"It had been raining all afternoon so I had stayed inside practicing my earthbending. But as the rain stopped, I felt something move in the earth. At first I thought it was a mudslide, but it was too small for that. It was…like an ant crawling on your arm, but under my feet in the earth. I could not feel anyone around, but the sensation of something moving would not go away.

"I opened the door of our stone hut to see that the ground around me was…changed.

"We had built our shelter in a thickly-wooded area, and unless you were an earthbender or knew what you were looking at, you would only see a large boulder rising out of the undergrowth. But now that undergrowth was pressed flat. At first, I thought it was the rain that had pounded it down. But as I looked, I realized that the brush and grasses had truly been flattened and pressed into the wet ground, as though smashed with a foot twice as wide as I am tall.

"As I studied this strangeness, I felt the earth move again. And long lines of stone rose up through the crushed undergrowth to leave marks on the surface. I did not know what the lines meant, and I sensed there was no one nearby, neither man nor badgermole, that could have made them. The lines began almost at my feet and stretched away into the woods, the path cleared as if by earthbending.

"I believed that my location had been compromised, which meant Sifu Odin was in danger. I assumed that whoever was bending the earth was farther away than I could sense, but since they already knew I was there, I had no advantage in remaining where I was. So I gathered my few supplies and began to follow the strange lines out into the forest.

"I walked until well after sunset. By then I had covered such distance that no earthbender or badgermole could be responsible, and I knew that, but I could not bring myself to go back. The lines continued to stretch before me, and each time I thought I had approached the end of them, more would rise up out of the earth and cross my path. By the time the only light left to me was feeble starlight, I was deep in the forest, totally lost.

"Then there was a gust of arctic-cold air and clouds blotted out all the light. I could have lit a torch, but my earth senses were strong enough that I felt I could go on without it. I felt the marks move again, the lines getting larger and more pronounced all around me. And then at the edge of my awareness I felt something new.

"It was a crater in the forest, a deep bowl of earth where nothing grew. I could not turn away now even if I had wanted to. I followed the lines to the edge and looked down.

"There was something lit down there, but my earth sense told me it was empty.

"I crawled down the side of the crater, drawn towards that tiny spot of light, no bigger than a thumbnail. The light was an odd, sickly blue color, and as I got closer I could almost see it pulsing. The ground under my feet felt strange. It was cold, and dead somehow. My earth senses were much weaker, as though I were trying to sense through metal but not like any metal I had ever known before. Almost like trying to sense the earth through a layer of water and wood.

"Finally I reached the center of the crater. The light was so tiny I thought it must be some kind of insect. I reached out my hands to grasp it and pluck it out of the air so I could examine it. But when my fingers touched the light, I felt a rush of cold like a wall of frigid water.

"I heard a distant screaming and howling.

"Then nothing.

"When I came to, I found myself looking into Sifu Odin's face. He was as frantic as I had ever seen him. I was also buried to the neck in dirt so cold and dead I thought for sure it was ice until Sifu Odin parted it to release me. I looked around and realized I had been in the crater long enough for my stomach to ache with hunger and for my fingers and toes to turn blue with cold. The sun was already high in the sky and sinking towards sunset.

"Sifu Odin carried me out of the crater and sped with me through the woods, never looking back and not saying a word until much later when we had stopped for the night in a village some distance away. He told me that he had left me for six days, and he had been looking for me for three more. Somehow, I lost a full seven days in the earth in that crater, and even now I have no memory of what transpired."

At last Heero looked up, his eyes remote and unreadable.

"I learned later that that crater is all that is left of the place where Avatar Yuy was struck down and died."

Duo's eyes were enormous in his pale face and he gulped loudly.

"Heero," Trowa rocked a little on the sand, green eyes serious, "is this true?"

"It is," Heero affirmed. "Sifu Odin forbade me from ever returning to that area again, and for all the years he trained me I never saw him so unsettled as he was that night."

"What does it mean?" Trowa asked.

Heero shook his head. "I do not know. I have never known. But when you consider that the Avatar died so violently, and that the Avatar Soul was split into five, is it possible something was left over to mark the place where it happened?"

"But what _something_?" Duo asked, a little hysterically. "Is it something I _need_? I don't want to lose my _something_ in a scary blue light!"

"Now you've done it," Trowa frowned at Heero. "You've scared a man already mentally unstable even without the cactus juice."

"He did ask for a scary story," Heero protested.

Trowa and Heero began trying to urge Duo to be calm, reminding him that all this had happened years ago, far away, and that he was safe, but to no avail. His fear and panic grew and grew until he was almost seeing the events Heero had described right in their little sand den.

"We're dead!" he bellowed, thrashing about. "We're _dead_!"

"Hold him down," Trowa ordered, dodging the senseless blows.

Heero caught up some sand and pinned Duo firmly, but gently.

" _We're dead we're dead we're dead_ …" he moaned.

:: _Enough_!::

All three froze at the ringing voice that sounded in the backs of their minds. Though, truly, it wasn't really a "voice" in the traditional sense. As the five Avatars had discovered, there was a place in their spirits where they were united, and through that place, they could speak to one another. Their words were rarely truly words as such – more often it was an eloquent mix of feelings and even images – but the impression was so clear all of them could understand one another without fail.

Trowa recovered first. :: _Quatre_?:: he sent.

:: _Be calm_ ,:: came the familiar voice. With the command came a palpable sense of ease and serenity, and in it Heero and Duo and Trowa all could almost see Quatre, legs folded in meditation, Wufei at his side. :: _You're all right, Duo. You haven't lost anything_.::

Duo had relaxed completely under the concentrated the influence of the empath, but Heero and Trowa exchanged looks. Heero focused on that inner connection. :: _I apologize for disturbing you. It appears that the tale I told_ -::

:: _I know_ ,:: Quatre interrupted. :: _Don't worry about_ it.:: They could almost feel his smile. :: _I'll help Duo sleep for now, and by tomorrow the cactus juice should be gone from his system. Wufei and I will be on our way back to you in the morning and we'll reach you as soon as we can_.::

But there was an odd pause in the emotions he was sharing, and through their connection they could all feel it, though Duo was too weary to really understand. It was Wufei who sent, :: _What is it, Quatre_?::

:: _I don't want to upset Duo_ ,:: came the answer, and as Duo gave a wobbly thumbs-up and a sleepy grin, Quatre surrendered. _::That story you were telling, Heero? We could hear it, too. But…there's more to it than what you know_.::

:: _There is_?:: he asked.

:: _Yes_ ,:: Quatre affirmed. :: _Though perhaps you won't want to hear it_.::

:: _Not likely_ ,:: Wufei interjected sharply. :: _Tell it now_.::

:: _Oh. Well_ …:: They could all feel his hesitation before he seemed to gather himself. :: _Put simply, Duo's right. There was something that was left behind in that place, part of what connects us as the Avatar. And when Heero was drawn to it as a child, he set it free_.::

:: _What aren't you saying, Quatre_?:: Heero demanded.

A feeling very like a sigh echoed through their connection. :: _It's really a story for another day_.::

"Quatre," Heero growled aloud so fiercely it translated into almost an empathic shout.

:: _I'm not telling the whole story now_ ,:: Quatre sent decisively. :: _But I promise I'll tell you everything some other time. Those seven days, Heero? You weren't just asleep. You were trapped in the Spirit World_.::

:: _Then how did I escape_?:: Heero wanted to know.

:: _I rescued you_.::


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quatre tells his version of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sort of fulfilling saiyuri_dahlia's request, after all! The last part of this tale will come next weekend.
> 
> Enjoy!

"All right, OwlCat. Spill!"

Quatre blinked widely innocent eyes at Duo. "Spill what?"

"You know what!" Duo waggled a finger at him. "That whole thing about Heero in the Spirit World! Now that I'm not all loopy-goopy on cactus juice, I want to hear it!"

Wufei frowned. "Loopy…goopy?"

Trowa immediately raised an eyebrow. "Are you quite sure you're over the effects of it?"

"That's not the soundest thing I've ever heard you say," Quatre added with thick concern. "Perhaps we should give you another day or two to rest."

"It's already been four days! You try to keep from telling that story or I'll…I'll…" Duo suddenly smiled wickedly, "I'll tell Dorothy that you said she might make a good wife."

Quatre's wide-eyed horror was not feigned.

"OW!" Duo rubbed his head at the sharp _thwack_ he'd received. "What'd you do that for, Heero?"

"Don't threaten Quatre with that," he admonished. "That's going too far."

"I agree," Wufei said. "Let us sic that woman on _you_ for a few days and see how you manage."

"All right, fine! You guys have no sense of humor!" Duo complained. "Only Triton understands me anyway."

The sky bison carrying them rumbled, which Duo took for agreement.

"But he has a point," Wufei said. "You did tell us you would explain."

"Yes, of course," Quatre nodded. "But…it will seem a strange story to you all."

"Stranger than being one Avatar in five separate people?" Trowa asked archly.

Quatre nodded. "Yes. Because while I knew at the time about my nature as part of the Avatar, I was still only a portion of the Avatar and not yet remotely well-trained for certain aspects of working with the Spirit World. So what I experienced is like nothing any previous Avatar had done."

"Tell us!" Duo asked eagerly.

Quatre made himself comfortable in his habitual spot on the left-hand side of Triton's broad saddle and closed his eyes as the words began to flow.

"We were ten years old at the time, and I had already begun pursuing the Order of the White Lotus in an attempt to lay the groundwork to find you all. I had already learned a great deal of control over my empathy, but now and again something would happen and it would overwhelm me without warning. For this reason, I was rarely left alone; often my sister Iria or my friend Sada had the keeping of me for my father was far too busy to look out for his only son.

"One dreary afternoon, I felt a strange ache in my chest, as though a string had been tied around my ribs without my noticing and now someone was tugging on it, causing my heart to jolt. It plagued me throughout the evening, and I was sent to bed early to rest. Iria had left with me a little bell to ring if I needed her in the night, and I remember it standing silent on my bedside table, as though mocking me. Because I knew she would come if I called, but somehow I also knew there was nothing she could do with whatever was happening.

"I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes I would feel that tug again, sharper and sharper until I pulled open my sleeping robe to ensure I was not being stabbed by a thin needle or pin. But my skin remained unmarked even as the ache felt as though it should have drawn blood.

"Then, I suddenly felt a rush of cold, as though I had been dropped into a freezing lake. I remember gasping against the cold and wondering if it would drown me. I realized I had closed my eyes and I feared to open them, but the pain in my chest was growing worse with every passing moment.

"When I finally opened my eyes, the pain vanished. However, it was not my familiar bedroom that was before me anymore. I was standing on a vast, ruined plain.

"The land was blackened as if by a great fire. For as far as I could see in every direction, there was little but scorched ash and the rotting remains of trees. It smelled horrible and I could scarcely breathe. The ground was strangely sticky, and if I stood too long in one place, my feet would sink. Everything was unstable – the logs of fallen trees crumbled if touched, the ground gave way without warning to a morass of dark sludge.

"I knew I had been pulled into the Spirit World, but I didn't know why. I assumed something was terribly wrong, and that, as the Avatar, I needed to fix it. But I was younger even than Avatar Aang when he awoke from the iceberg, and without any powers at all. For a time, I was very afraid.

"And then I felt a new pulse of warmth in my chest. I didn't know it then, but it was a feeling I have come to associate with our connection to the Avatar Soul. It infused me with new courage. After all, there is no bending in the Spirit World. I had no less ability than any past Avatar to act, and I had as much reason. So I resolved to find out what was wrong.

"But it took me ages to figure out how to move around that barren, wrong landscape. I would take a few steps only to sink to my waist with the speed of an eelhound. Pushing down against the slimy ground only served to bury my hands. And any upwards motion I did manage was almost overwhelmed by the pull on me from below, sucking me down to where I knew I would drown.

"I don't know how many times I was almost completely sunken in that black mass of neither mud nor earth nor water. It reminded me of the infected pus that gathers around a dangerous wound. Again and again I would struggle to move forward. Again and again I would falter and be drawn down into that putrid mess. But with every step I managed, the warmth in my chest grew. I knew I could not give up. I was the Avatar – one of the Avatars. I could not let my other selves down by failing here.

"After an eternity battling the very lands, I found a tree trunk that did not disintegrate at my first touch and I fell upon it, exhausted. I was smeared head-to-toe with the slime, and the smell of charred flesh in the air seemed a thousand times worse. I felt so small and helpless. Even as the Avatar, how could I possibly help this wretched land if I could not even move? What spirits could I soothe if I couldn't find any in this empty, unending plain of muck? I wasn't ready to give up, but I felt very alone.

"Then I heard the first sound other than my own struggles – a tiny whimper, almost a whisper. It galvanized me and I got back up to begin struggling towards it. The going was no easier. It may even have been worse. But with every step I managed, the whimpering grew.

"Suddenly I lost my balance and tipped forward, sure I was about to drown if I could not pull my face from the morass again. But instead I found my hands and arms touching something solid and dry. With a great pull, I yanked the rest of my body from the slime and slid down a smooth, glassy surface.

"I had come upon a crater that seemed forged of obsidian which somehow kept the decaying muck above at bay. The basin of the crater was shallow enough that I could walk easily along the sloping sides. But it was the sight in its center that drew me at once.

"There was a thing there that I saw for many years afterwards in my nightmares. It was an altar or a pedestal, formed from the remains of many dead human bodies. But these remains, while dead, were still fresh. Blood oozed from wounds, entrails spilled from horribly rent torsos. And the heads…the faces…

"Every single face in that pile of destroyed humanity was frozen in a scream of terror, eyes forever wide open and lost in death.

"The whole thing glowed with a dark light, and as the light flicked and pulsed and throbbed, the bodies in the altar seemed to move and shiver. As I got closer, the very air began to heat, and the sticky, ashy substance stuck all over my body boiled against my skin. Even my tears and my tongue boiled when I screamed.

"But I could not stop because there was another child on the altar.

"I forced my feet to go on, all my will bent upon the still body on the top of that horrible thing. I knew the instant I was close enough to see through the dark light that I was looking at another part of the Avatar, another who was like me, part of me. He was thinner than me, but stronger – I could tell. And his dark hair was soaked with sweat or blood, I didn't know which. But even without seeing him open his eyes or knowing his name, I knew who he was.

"I knew I had found you, Heero. And I knew I had to save you.

"The bier – for that's what it truly was – had begun to pull the boy's form into it, wrapping a length of ruined muscle around an arm, a portion of what remained of a hand on an ankle, and one of the ribcages that seemed to have no front was ever so slowly crawling up to drape itself over the boy's body. I knew if he was pulled into the bodies he would die, and he would be trapped here in this horror with the others forever.

"I first moved to grab Heero's hand, as if I could waken him and pull him free. But as soon as I touched his skin the heat around me increased tenfold and drove me back. I might have been on fire. I couldn't tell. My hands blistered and the blood on them burned like oil.

"I began to scream at the bier, as though it could hear me. I asked why it was taking you, why it was hurting me, how we could help it. I begged it to let you go, to set you free. I even offered it myself in the stead of the boy already trapped. Nothing worked.

"Finally I realized if I could not touch the boy, I would have to touch the bodies.

"So I approached again, but this time instead of reaching for Heero, I pulled at the nearest thing to me – a shoulder, I think. And when I touched it, it was as though my empathy had been unleashed. The shoulder under my hand became, in my mind, a whole man. I saw his face, knew his name, felt all of his feelings for all of his life. He was trapped in this cycle of destruction and decay just as Heero was, and he was suffering, too. All his pain had become manifest in the heat around me, and it was his pain, along with that of all those who were trapped with him, that was encasing Heero.

"So I did the only thing I could do. I took his pain into myself with my empathy.

"The instant I did so, though it felt like being skewered with a spear, he disappeared. And not just his mind and his tortured soul – his body vanished from the pile. And the heat around me lessened just a little bit. I could tell, I could feel, that he was at last free.

"I don't know how long I worked. Absorbing all that pain seemed to take weeks, and often I had to rest after each, curled up on the hard obsidian and weeping or trembling as the fiery suffering ate away at me. But with every soul released, the land around me seemed to improve as well. The putrid smell began to fade, and the sky which had been so dark began to show signs of light.

"At last I was down to the only body left. It had been torn and burned almost beyond recognition, but I knew anyway that I was looking at Avatar Yuy. What was left of him was shuddering on the ground, one broken arm around Heero's throat and Heero's feet tangled in the gaping hole in his stomach. But unlike the others, Avatar Yuy's eyes moved. He was…aware.

"I knelt before him. 'I am you,' I said. 'I am part of the Avatar Soul.'

"His grip on Heero tightened. 'You cannot be. I am dead and the Avatar with me.'

"I shook my head. 'If that were true, why do you hold this boy so tightly? Can't you feel it? He's you, too.'

"Avatar Yuy seemed to notice what he was doing for the first time. 'I cannot feel the earth,' he said. 'But I sense it through this boy.'

"I nodded. 'Because he bears your earthbending. He is born of you. As am I.' I held out a hand. 'Let me show you.'

"He considered for so long I feared his little sanity had truly escaped him, but finally he nodded. I put a hand onto his forehead and released all my powers of empathy at once.

"Unlike with the others, as Avatar Yuy's life and feelings and soul flowed into me, it crackled and jolted very like being struck by lightning. Where the others had all seemed to pass through me as they reached release, Avatar Yuy seemed to fill up every crack of my awareness, every space inside my heart. I think I screamed. I tried to. But I did not pull away.

"Finally it was over, and Avatar Yuy's body before me rose up, unbroken and whole. He held Heero in his arms and cradled him tenderly. 'I understand now,' he said.

"I was still on my knees, trembling, until I felt a warm hand on my head that drove away all the pain. I looked up into Avatar Yuy's eyes and saw all colors for a moment, and all the past Avatars. I think I even saw all five faces of the Gundam Avatar, before there was only Yuy again.

"He pressed his fingers into my hair. 'You have been here too long,' he told me. 'You will die or go mad if you remain.'

"I pointed to the boy in the Avatar's arms. 'What about him?'

"Avatar Yuy answered, 'Though he has been here longer, his mind has not awakened. His time here will not harm him, nor will he remember it. But you must go or the dark madness of the spirits will come to possess you and will poison the Avatar Soul.'

"I hesitated. 'Will he be all right?' I asked.

"Avatar Yuy nodded. 'Yes. An old friend of mine is coming for him even now, and he will know how to call the boy back. I will watch over him until he comes.'

"I wanted to touch Heero again, but somehow I knew if I did, I might wake him. So I bowed to Avatar Yuy as best I could. 'Thank you.'

"He smiled at me. 'Thank _you_ , young one. I see now that you spoke the truth. The Avatar still lives in you. And now my dreams will live in you as well. I am sorry for the pain you must carry, but your heart is strong and your pain will have no power over it. Now go, young Avatar. And when you need me, I shall be with you.'

"There was a great rushing and I felt myself surrounded in cold again. When I opened my eyes once more, I was back in my room blinking at Iria. Apparently I had been asleep for almost a week with no signs of awareness. I tried to tell Iria where I had been, but she told me they were fever dreams and to forget them. But I never could.

"From that day on, I knew I needed to find the others who were a part of the Avatar Soul so we could restore what had been broken and prevent anything like that from ever happening again."


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all stories end with the telling. Some need more to come to a peaceful close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for the thrilling conclusion to my inadvertent 3-shot! Or, I dunno – maybe it isn't "thrilling" but at least I hope you've had fun.
> 
> On a slightly sadder note, next week will mark the end of the Tales from Gundam Island series for now. That doesn't mean I won't get a brilliant idea for another oneshot or even a full sequel someday, but I'm putting the series to rest after the last update next weekend. I've been writing like crazy this year while I've been posting Tears of Revelry and later the Tales, and it's past time some of that work got to the light of day. However, none of it is Gundam-related. But don't worry. I write in cycles. It might take me a year or two, but I'm sure one day or another the muse will be back to say I've got something more to do to our beloved boys.
> 
> In the meantime, thank you everyone for your support and your comments and your interest. I hope to see you all around again!
> 
> Enjoy!

Quatre finished his story and lapsed into silence. The other four Gundams could feel the memory of suffering bouncing around in the young empath's emotions, but he was doing his best to keep it from them. When he had said he had absorbed the suffering of the dead and dying, that had not been an exaggeration – he had literally taken their feelings into himself and kept them as though they were his own to enable the trapped souls to move on. And feelings so strong, even if not originally his own, had indeed burdened him and now seemed close to breaking through to the surface again if Quatre could not manage them. So they left him with his quiet for a time, looking anywhere out at the endless sand.

The sun had moved in the sky before Quatre took a deep breath and seemed to shove the last vestiges of his feelings down. He lifted his head to speak when instead he gasped.

"Turn left!" he ordered. Triton turned even before Trowa had reacted, and in moments the airbender became aware of what Quatre's own senses had told him.

"There's people down there," he pointed.

"Looks like we found the idiots," Duo commented. "They must have gathered together to try to survive after realizing how stupid it was to be here in the first place."

"There's no Library," Heero pointed out.

"That's just as well," Wufei snorted. "If we did not find it with so much searching, I believe it must still be gone. Let's leave it where it is and get out of this wasteland."

Triton landed on a hot dune and the Gundams scrambled off his back to the vague shelter erected in a dip in the sand. It seemed to be no more than the remains of a cloak propped up in sand. And beneath it, six men and women sought the shade.

"Bring water!" Trowa called, first to reach them. Duo paused to simply yank the water from one of the supply jars on Triton's back, expertly spinning it in the air while he joined the others in the race to the tent.

"They're alive," Heero said, and only those who knew him best could hear the surprise in his voice.

"There were…more of us before," coughed one of the youngest, a girl not older than the Avatars. "They drank the cactus juice and wandered off. …We didn't find them."

"We were so foolish!" lamented the elderly man who had led one of the search parties. "To think we could find what the spirits hid…"

"Easy," Quatre soothed, rubbing a hand on the man's back. "It's all right now. We're going to get you all home."

Wufei felt like rolling his eyes, but that would be rude and would reflect ill on the Gundams, so he kept the desire inside – though the others could feel it. He and Quatre began lifting those able to walk and helping them stumble to Triton. Trowa, Duo, and Heero focused on moving those who needed the air or the sand to bear their weight, Duo watching each carefully for injury. But other than extreme dehydration and sun exposure, the six survivors were all right.

The Gundams had met up at one of the few oasis spots in the desert not far away that morning, so they headed back in that direction. The afternoon was filled with looking after the desert survivors, slowly rehydrating them, and listening to their self-recriminations and vows to make it up to the families of those who had not survived. By the time they reached the oasis, night had fallen.

"We should get them to a healer soon," Duo said lowly as the six slept, exhausted, curled together in a heap on Triton's saddle. "They'll make it, but those sun-sores hurt and need to be washed out."

"Can't you do it with the water from the oasis?" Heero asked.

"Sure," Duo shrugged, "but they need medicine. And shade. And lots of other things. Plus, if I clean out the sores now, they'll just get all new sand in them when they start flying again and it'll hurt worse than it does now."

Trowa looked up at the stars. "The nearest healer is probably that way," he pointed south. "There's villages dotted all through those mountains at the end of the desert, and it's closer than trying to get somewhere more populated."

"There's absolutely _nothing_ there," Duo frowned. "Trust me. I used to live there."

"The Maganacs have a camp to the southwest," Quatre said. "Right on the edge of the desert, and since they know we're here they might even have moved closer in just in case. And we know there's a healer with them."

"What do you think?" Wufei asked Heero.

"The Maganacs are probably our best bet," Heero nodded at Quatre. "They are close and have a good healer, plus they have experience dealing with this sort of illness."

"And Triton can find them," Trowa pointed out.

"So can I," Quatre replied. "And if they've got any hawks out, they'll lead me in as well."

"The most important thing is getting these people the help they need quickly," Wufei said after a moment. "Their best chance lies with Quatre on Triton. We can come behind on the sled, to spare the creature at least some strain of carrying too many in such inhospitable conditinos. Once Quatre finds Rashid, he and Triton can come back for us. He'll be able to find us." He put a hand on his chest in demonstration.

So Quatre turned most of the supplies over to the other Gundams with the sand-sled and urged Triton back up into the air. "I'll be back as soon as I can!" he called.

"We'll be so close behind you, you won't even have time to look!" Duo yelled back.

Trowa had been quiet but now he looked up as the other three piled onto the sled and prepared to make use of the cooler night to travel. "Do you think Quatre did it on purpose?"

"What?" Duo asked.

"Arranged it so we wouldn't be able to talk about it."

"It was my idea to separate," Wufei pointed out.

"Besides," Heero said, "we _aren't_ separated. We could still talk about it."

Trowa shrugged. It was true, but it was also different.

In the end, it took the remaining four Gundams all their energy to get out of the Shi Wong Desert without killing one another, and even that was a near thing. The heat played havoc against their already sharp tempers, and the monotony of the landscape and the bending made all four irritable and frustrated. By the time Quatre and Triton found them a few days later, Wufei and Duo weren't speaking to one another and Heero was down to monosyllabic responses only. They could have let his empathy soothe them from afar, but even within their connection Quatre was still as distant as he had been since telling his story and no one wanted to burden him.

But eventually they were together in the camp of the Maganacs and there was no longer a desert to distract them. Triton had made quite clear that he was utterly done flying back and forth in the desert and would be sleeping for the foreseeable future, and the Maganacs, after greeting the Gundams, had given them space for their much-needed rest.

"So," Duo said, looking over the platter of food to see if there was any last starfruit and finding one small slice.

"So," Trowa echoed. Wufei merely sniffed.

Duo sighed gustily. "All right look! I'm sorry I called you a koi-eared mud-faced ratdog with the sense of a headless possum chicken. There! Happy now?"

Heero's face twitched. "You also told him his sword looked like the tongue of the biggest boot-licker in Ba Sing Se."

"Was that during or after the cactus juice?"

"After," Wufei grumbled. "Thankfully I was with Quatre in Omashu throughout your chemically-induced senselessness or you might have more apologies to make."

"Okay, well, sorry for that part too."

Wufei crossed his arms but let out a long breath. "And I apologize for my comment that you lacked honor."

"Friends again?" Duo asked. Wufei nodded and they shook hands on it. The cloud of distance between all five of them began to clear, revealing Heero's relief and Trowa's vast amusement over the whole thing.

Quatre was still oddly withdrawn, but now there was nothing left to hide it from them. He looked up ruefully as he felt their attention swing towards him. "You don't have to worry, you know."

Heero lifted an eyebrow.

"I never wanted to keep it from you," Quatre explained. "It's just…that pain is a part of me now. A part of us. I…never wanted you to have to feel it. I'll just need a little more time to box it all up and I'll be fine again."

"Our serenity is never worth your keeping suffering to yourself," Wufei said softly. "We are one, one soul, are we not? What each of us carries could destroy us, except that we balance the weight evenly."

"Besides," Heero said suddenly, "are you certain you must still carry it?"

"What?" Quatre's head came up.

"Clearly it was your responsibility to take those emotions that were binding the spirits of those trapped with Avatar Yuy out of the Spirit World to ensure they achieved peace, but is there any reason you must _continue_ to carry that pain now? Can't you let it go?"

"For once," Trowa put in, "the Air Nomads are right about something. Let your fears and pains go and the weight you drop from your spirit will allow you to rise up to your own true self."

Quatre looked around, blushing slightly. "I...guess I never thought of that. I've spent so long keeping it inside...I never really considered if it would do any harm to release it after a while."

"You're not supposed to think of _everything_!" Duo grinned, flinging an arm around him. "That's why we've got each other!"

"I…I think I can let it go," Quatre said after a moment. "But I want to do it properly. I want to go back there. In the real world. To where it happened."

He looked up expecting resistance, but instead the other four nodded.

Trowa voiced what they were all thinking. "We ought to go to see the place from which we were born."

"As soon as Triton is ready," Heero said decisively. "And then we will put all these ghosts to rest once and for all."

It took the better part of two weeks for the Gundams to finish spreading the word about the desert – which Duo helpfully distilled to the handy slogan "The Library's gone, the heat is really _on_ , so keep clear or you'll be deader than a fried prawn" – plus getting Triton happy and rested enough to carry them halfway across the Earth Kingdom. But before long, they had landed in the forest just a few long strides from the crater that looked just as Heero had described it.

"I know I'm not the only one getting the creeps here," Duo said in an undertone.

The others nodded. They could all feel it – an odd shiver that began in their chests and wormed its way into the backs of their minds where their connection felt more alien than it ever had before. There was no little blue light like what Heero had described in the center, and yet there was _something_ there.

"Come on," Heero said firmly, leading the way down into the crater. His distaste for how the earth felt, still so cold and dead, bled into all of them. But that did not stop any of the Gundams from continuing to move forward until they stood in the center of the crater.

"It didn't start this way," Wufei said softly. The others looked at him. "Before Avatar Yuy died, this was a simple clearing, though that day saw it littered with the horror of the battle. Reports from the immediate aftermath suggest nothing strange occurred right away, either. No one knows what exactly happened or when, but when people finally came looking for the bodies, this is what they found."

"As if the earth itself was poisoned with the death of the Avatar," Heero commented.

"Not just the earth," Trowa added. "The air, too."

"It is a wound that won't heal until the Avatar is reborn as one," Quatre said softly. "But we can do much to alleviate it now."

Quatre moved to stand just next to the very center of the crater and put out his arms. Wordlessly, the other four formed a circle with that unseen wrongness in the center. They grasped hands and braced themselves for whatever might come next.

At first there was only stillness.

Then there was a shock like lightning and the very ground shook. The five Gundams resolutely held onto one another, never looking away nor shrinking back from the palpable animosity that began to seep into the atmosphere around them. But they could not help the thoughts chasing themselves between them so quickly none could quite tell whose was whose.

_Was that a hand on his back?_

_Was that a sword-point in his side?_

_Who was whispering in his ear?_

_Was the ground shifting under his feet?_

_Was the air choking him?_

_Was their blood freezing?_

They held on anyway.

"We are the Avatar!" Heero yelled.

"We are alive!" Duo insisted.

"We are at peace!" Trowa offered.

"We are whole!" Quatre shouted.

"And we will undo what was done!" Wufei finished.

Everything went totally quiet and still for a moment. Then there was a clear _snap_ in the air and the earth, enough that the benders flinched.

From the center of their circle, the very center of the crater, a ghostly form rose. It began as a wavery spirit, but as it gathered itself, its form resolved into the tall Avatar Yuy. He rose up above the ground until he could hover above the five, looking down at them.

"I believe you," he whispered to them. "And as long as you live, I shall not be broken."

"Be at peace, Avatar Yuy," Quatre whispered. "The world is safe."

"The Avatar will protect it," Heero affirmed.

"Promise," Duo winked.

Avatar Yuy gazed at them. "I am sorry for your pain. It was my failure that brought this life to you."

Wufei shook his head. "It is not failure. Your spirit was strong enough to survive in us. That is enough."

Trowa nodded wordlessly.

Avatar Yuy's spirit began to glow brightly with the light of the Avatar Soul. "Then I will join my brothers and sisters. And when you need me, I will be here to guide you always, my young inheritors."

His spirit burst into pure light, a beam of which lanced into each of the five Gundams. A sixth shaft of light shot straight into the ground.

The five held on until the quaking inside them stopped; then they let go and stumbled backwards. For a long time they stood in silence, each quietly regarding the change in their surroundings – and in themselves.

Finally Duo spoke. "Hey, Heero?"

"Hn?"

"Next time I ask for a scary story, make something up, okay?"

"Roger that."


End file.
